


signal flare

by aibari



Series: this is how it works [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Apocalypse, Boredom, Canon-typical monsters (implied), Doing the Job That's in Front of You, Eldritch Podcasting (background), F/F, Podcasting, Slice of Life, The Magnus Archives Femslash Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aibari/pseuds/aibari
Summary: In end, the end of the world is about twenty percent terror and thirty percent clean up. Melanie has it all down, mapped out and in order like the budget spreadsheets she'd done when she still worked on Ghost Hunt UK. The final fifty percent is waiting for the other two, and with it comes a tense, restless boredom that makes it impossible to sit still, that reminds her uncomfortably of working in the archives. There are monsters outside, sometimes, but mostly it just feels like waiting for your next dentist's appointment, if your dentist is a fear god who wants to eat you for power.Melanie and Georgie run an advice podcast after the end of the world, or try to.For day six of the Magnus Archives Femslash Week 2019.5: Apocalypse.
Relationships: Georgie Barker/Melanie King
Series: this is how it works [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1586131
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78
Collections: The Magnus Archives Femslash Week 2019.5





	signal flare

In end, the end of the world is about twenty percent terror and thirty percent clean up. Melanie has it all down, mapped out and in order like the budget spreadsheets she'd done when she still worked on Ghost Hunt UK. The final fifty percent is waiting for the other two, and with it comes a tense, restless boredom that makes it impossible to sit still, that reminds her uncomfortably of working in the archives. There are monsters outside, sometimes, but mostly it just feels like waiting for your next dentist's appointment, if your dentist is a fear god who wants to eat you for power.

Melanie knows how horror works. If you try to keep your readers in suspense for too long periods of time, if you force them to sustain that same level of fear, they burn out. The scary becomes known and commonplace and boring, in its own way, even as it traumatises you. The fear becomes stale.

The entities seem to know it too. Every day becomes a push and pull of terror-and-reprieve, and the reprieve has its own kind of dread. It's the feeling, the _knowing_ , that the rug will be swept out from under you, without knowing when it will be 

Melanie hates it.

Georgie hates it too. Melanie can tell. It's in the straightness of her spine and the tension in her fingers when they touch. Georgie doesn't get scared and she doesn't get anxious, but she feels boredom and frustration almost as well as Melanie does.

They deal with it by making out, or playing games. Or by fucking. Sometimes they just lie on Georgie's couch and hold on to each other, staring up at the ceiling and waiting for sounds of terror outside. They collate what information they have on the Fears and record as many episodes of _What the Ghost_ about them as quickly as they can. They print and then hand-write leaflets that Georgie takes with her when she goes outside, handing them to everyone she sees.

“You know,” she murmurs into Melanie's chest one night, curled up close on the couch again, “having a spooky podcast was much more fun when it wasn't so _practical_.”

Melanie laughs and agrees, but the _fun_ part of producing paranormal media doesn't feel as important anymore. She tries to imagine going back to Ghost Hunt UK, knowing what everyone knows now, and it sits uncomfortable in her chest, like swallowing a piece of something that's too big for your esophagus.

She always thought ghosts were real before, but they feel real in a different way now, after being stabbed and shot and possessed by Slaughter. Real like bones breaking. Real like a knife digging deep into flesh.

She hadn't meant to go back to talking about the paranormal after leaving the Institute. If things had gone differently, if there world hadn't ended, she might have tried youtube again, made a channel testing eyeliners and … failing to learn how to bake bread, probably. Done stupid, meaningless challenges. Posted videos of the Admiral trying to jump onto the curtain rods. Vlogged about trying to relearn how to move in the world without sight.

She might have had to ask Georgie to help with the editing.

Still. It would have been nice.

There is a different value to this work. It's _doing_ something, helping people in tangible, crucial ways, saving lives in the way she'd been fooled into thinking the Institute was. Once Georgie starts posting the episodes, the _What the Ghost_ mail account starts to fill up with messages. Some are full of relief. Others are heavy with grief, or anger. They all say thank you, over and over, in different ways. Georgie starts to read them out loud on the show, and then they get more. Outside, the world is falling apart. Inside, in their apartment, they read about lucky escapes and missing persons, lost connections and unlikely reunions. It feels like lighting matches in a dark room, sparking bright into the pitch black.

Then the internet goes out.

When it comes back, it's all wrong.

Melanie and Georgie print more leaflets.

After a lot of deliberation, they post a short notice online to let people know they won't be updating the podcast anymore, and to please stop using the internet.

They only check the homepage once, after.

Something is posting bad advice in their voices.

There isn't anything they can do about it. Melanie is furious. The feeling is stronger than any anger she's felt since the ghost bullet. It fills her up until she's screaming profanities into her pillow, pure and hot like molten ore at the core of her.

It's different than the anger she'd felt at the Institute. It reminds her of who she used to be, back when she was just getting started with Ghost Hunt UK, when she channelled that anger into something _productive_ , like research and filming and budgeting.

“It's the way they take all your best efforts and try to twist them against you,” she tells Georgie, gesticulating with a piece of jammy toast. “How can you win against that?”

Georgie has been quieter than usual, after their evil twins started broadcasting. Melanie thinks she can imagine her face, jaw tight, brow furrowed, and she's mad about that, too. She's quiet for a long time now, too.

“That's how it gets you,” she says in the end. She sounds so desperately tired. Melanie reaches out with her non-toast hand until her fingers brush the side of Georgie's face. She touches the side of her face as gently as she can, strokes her thumb over Georgie's cheekbone, her fingers over Georgie's earlobe.

The anger settles warmly in her chest, turning into something clear and sure and ready to be used when she needs to.

She thinks: Georgie is mine.

She thinks: This space is mine.

She thinks: No fear god can have it.

It's not realistic. Of course it isn't. She knows that.

But it feels powerful, all the same.

“Yeah,” she says, and smiles. Georgie's cheek is very soft under her fingers. “Better to light a flame thrower than curse the dark, right?”

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. I ended up cutting a slightly longer thing in two, so the next fic in this series (coming ... hopefully tomorrow lmao) follows pretty much immediately from this one.  
> 2\. If you want, you can find me on [tumblr](https://aibari.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/aibari)!


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